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Hollinger Corp. 
pH8.5 



BRITISH CENSORSHIP 
AND ENEMY PUBLICATIONS 



BY 
THEODORE WESLEY KOCH 

Chief, Order Division, Library of Congress 



Reprinted from the Library journal, September, 1917. 



31 651 

BRITISH CENSORSHIP AND ENEMY PUBLICATIONS 

By Theodore Wesley Koch, Chief, Order Division, Library of Congress 



In the early part of 191 7, while examin- 
ing books detained in England, an excep- 
tional opportunity was afforded me to study 
the workings of the British Censorship as 
it affected enemy publications. I came to 
feel that there were certain facts about 
the censorship that should be known by 
American librarians. I therefore sent to 
the Librarian of Congress a special report 
on the subject, prefaced with some his- 
torical facts which may not be known to 
American librarians and research workers. 
If Americans had gained earlier knowledge 
of what the British censors had to contend 
with and of the service these officials have 
rendered the Cause, they would doubtless 
have accepted with better grace the neces- 
sary interference with their mail. 

With Dr. Putnam's consent this report 
is now made public. The officials of the 
Censorship kindly verified the statements 
here made. 

OBJECT of the censorship 
Two important memoranda were issued 
in May. 191 5, as Parliamentary Papers — 
one on the Censorship, the other on the 
Press Bureau. Together they provide the 
official justification of the Censorship as it 
affects both the individual and the press. 
In the memorandum on the Censorship, 
this new branch of the government is 
described as one of several institutions de- 
signed with a threefold object: To prevent 
information of military value from reach- 
ing the enemy; to acquire similar informa- 
tion for the British government; and to 
check the dissemination of information use- 
ful to the enemy or prejudicial to the 
Allies. When the transmission of corre- 
spondence and the publication of news are 
consistent with the attainment of these ob- 
jects there is little or no interference. 
Every endeavor is made to safeguard the 
legitimate interests, private and commercial, 
of British subjects and neutrals. 

In the course of the present war it has 
become apparent that in the Censorship 
there lies ready to hand a weapon, the 
full value of which was perhaps not antici- 



pated prior to the war. It can be used to 
restrict commercial and financial transac- 
tions intended for the benefit of enemy 
governments or persons residing in enemy 
countries. 

The memorandum discusses the Censor- 
ship as it affects (1) private and com- 
mercial communications; and (2) the press. 
It states that the censorship of private and 
commercial communications is under the 
direction of a general officer who is re- 
sponsible to the Army Council. The Cen- 
sorship is organized in two sections: (1) 
the Cable Censorship under the control of 
the Chief Cable Censor, who is a senior 
officer of the general staff at the War Of- 
fice, and (2) the Postal Censorship, con- 
trolled by the Chief Postal Censor. In 
addition to some 120 cables and wireless 
stations in various parts of the Empire, 
the chief cable censor controls in the Unit- 
ed Kingdom messages sent over the cables 
of the private cable companies. Every 24 
hours from 30,000 to 50,000 telegrams pass 
thru the hands of the censors in the United 
Kingdom. Exclusive of those in the of- 
ficial Press Bureau, about 180 censors are 
employed in the United Kingdom in the 
censorship of cables; elsewhere in the Em- 
pire about 400. In the United Kingdom, 
with few exceptions, they are retired navy 
and military officers. 

The memorandum further states that the 
objects of the Postal Censorship are similar 
to those of the Cable Censorship. All mails 
that have to be censored are necessarily 
subject to some delay, but harmless letters, 
whether private or commercial, are not de- 
tained, even when coming from an enemy 
country or addressed to an enemy person. 
No letter, however, addressed to an enemy 
country can be transmitted unless its en- 
velope is left open and is enclosed in a 
cover addressed to a neutral country. Let- 
ters in which any kind of code or secret 
writing is used are liable to be detained 
even if the message appears to be harm- 
less and totally unconnected with the war. 
In the private branch more than a ton of 
mail matter is censored every week, ex- 



elusive of parcels. Commercial corre- 
spondence with certain foreign countries is 
dealt with in the trade branch and amounts 
to nearly four tons every week. 

LORD ROBERT CECIl/s STATEMENT 

There is a good deal of confusion in the 
public mind between the press censorship, 
the cable censorship and the censorship of 
the mails. Even the latter is complicated, 
because different considerations apply to 
mails originating in or destined for, the 
United Kingdom; mails between European 
countries and the United States intended to 
pass through the United Kingdom; mails 
carried on neutral ships which voluntarily 
call at British ports; and letters carried on 
neutral ships which would not enter British 
jurisdiction without some form of compul- 
sion. The distinction is emphasized in a 
letter addressed by Lord Robert Cecil, 
Minister of Blockade, to an American firm, 
and given to the press. The letter follows : 
Foreign Office, 
June 23rd, 1916 

Gentlemen : 

I am directed by Lord Robert Cecil to 
thank you for your letter of May 27th, in 
which you take issue with a statement made 
by him to a correspondent of the New York 
Times. This statement was that great care 
is taken to forward mails between neutral 
countries taken from neutral ships for ex- 
amination by the British censors as quickly 
as possible. You say that, during the last 
six or eight months, your correspondence 
with Holland has suffered great delay. 

Lord Robert Cecil's statement was intended 
as an assurance that the postal censorship 
had been perfecting its organization, and that, 
from the time at which he spoke, Americans 
could be confident that their letters would 
suffer only slight delay owing to detention 
by the censors. He did not intend to ex- 
clude the possibility that delays had occurred 
in earlier days, when the British authorities 
first began to examine mails carried on neu- 
tral ships. But even if such delays did ac- 
tually occur, it is by no means certain, and, 
in fact, it is in many cases unlikely, that those 
delays were due to the British censorship. 
Mails only began to be taken from neutral 
ships for censorship last December, and it is 
therefore quite clear that delays experienced 
by you from six to eight months ago can- 
not have been due to the censorship of these 
mails. As there has been a great deal of 
misunderstanding on this subject, I am to ex- 
plain the following points : 

The American mails censored in the United 
Kingdom must he divided into two classes, 



each of which is dealt with by a special or- 
ganization : 

(1) Terminal mails, i. e., mails originating 
in, or destined for, the United Kingdom. 
The censorship of these mails is one of 
the universally recognized rights of sov- 
ereignty, and it has been exercised 
since the beginning of the war, without 
any protest being made against it by 
neutral Governments. 

(2) Mails neither originating in, nor des- 
tined for, the United Kingdom. These 
must be further subdivided into three 
groups : 

(a) Transit mails, i. e., mails between 
European countries and the United 
States intended by the office of despatch 
to pass through the United Kingdom — 
for example, mails sent from Rotter- 
dam to this country for re-transmission 
from Liverpool to the United States. 
Such mails are forwarded by the Brit- 
ish Post-Office, and enjoy the facilities 
afforded by it to British mails, and tke 
right of censorship over them while in 
transit through British territory in 
time of war is generally admitted. This 
right, however, was not exerted at the 
beginning of this war, and censorship 
of these transit mails only came into 
force in April, 1915. 

(b) Mails carried by neutral ships which 
normally call at a British port or enter 
British jurisdiction without any form 
of compulsion. 

(c) Mails carried by neutral ships which 
would not enter British jurisdiction 
without some form of compulsion. 

The first ship from the United States to 
Holland from which the mails were removed 
was the Noorderdijk. These mails were landed 
at Ramsgate on the 18th December, 1915, ar- 
rangements not having then been completed 
to remove them at Falmouth. The first ship 
from Holland to the United States from which 
the mails were removed was the Noordam, 
which entered the Downs on the 5th Decem- 
ber. It is to classes (b) and (c) exclusively 
that the present discussions between this Gov- 
ernment and other neutral Governments refer, 
while class (c) alone is covered by the Hague 
Convention. 

Most of the annoyance caused in the United 
States by the action of His Majesty's Gov- 
ernment seems to arise from a confusion be- 
tween the above kinds of censorship. It is 
to the last two kinds only that Lord Robert 
Cecil's interview referred, and the British 
authorities are making every effort to perfect 
their organization so that the necessity of ex- 
amining this class of mail may not involve 
long delays. But during the time that the 
censorship of these particular mails has been 
in force, many other factors have occurred 



causing delay, quite independently of the ac- 
tion of the British Government. Sailings from 
Holland have been very irregular, owing to 
the mine fields sown by the Germans outside 
Rotterdam, and have, at times, been held up 
altogether, as, for instance, after the sink- 
ing of the Tubantia. As you are aware, the 
Dutch mail boats now proceed round the 
north of Scotland and go south, calling both 
at Kirkwall and at Falmouth before crossing 
the Atlantic, and this in itself cause's con- 
siderable delay. 

So far as the censorship is concerned, the 
delay in the case of mails from Holland to 
the United States will not be greater than 
between four and five days from the date 
when the mails are unloaded at Kirkwall to 
the date when they are handed by the cen- 
sors to the Post-Office to be sent on. The 
delay caused to mails from the United States 
to Holland will not be longer than six days 
in all. The Post-Office will always forward 
the mail by the next boat to its destination, 
and whether delay occurs in this operation 
will solely depend upon the regularity of sail- 
ings. It will be seen that letters contained 
in the outward mails will sometimes, and those 
in the inward mails generally, reach their 
destination as early as, or earlier than, if left 
on board the Dutch ship. 

When the urgent need of examining first- 
class mails, in order to intercept those postal 
packets which are admittedly liable to be treated 
as contraband, was first realized, it would 
have been possible at once to have brought 
the organization of the censorship to the level 
of efficiency it has since reached by collect- 
ing hurriedly a large enough number of ex- 
aminers; but it was thought that infinitely 
more harm would be done to neutral cor- 
respondence by allowing their letters to be 
handled by persons engaged hastily, whose 
character and reliability had not been 
thoroughly tested, than by subjecting the let- 
ters at first to some slight delay. The neces- 
sary staff has now been carefully selected, 
and this delay eliminated. 

In conclusion, Lord Robert Cecil would be 
much obliged if you would furnish him with 
more exact particulars of the letters which 
you complain of being delayed, giving, where 
possible, the date of the letter, the mail boat by 
which it was despatched, and, if registered, 
the registration number of the packet, in order 
that enquiry may be made into each case. 

As there is so much misunderstanding on 
these points, and in the hope that the above 
explanation may do something to make the 
position clear, Lord Robert Cecil proposes to 
publish the text of this letter for general 
information. 

DISCUSSION IN PARLIAMENT 

Lord Grey of Fallodon stated in the 
House of Lords, January 6, 1916, that 
goods otherwise liable to seizure on board 



neutral vessels do not, under international 
law, acquire immunity by the mere fact of 
being sent thru the post. The Allied gov- 
ernments are accordingly applying the same 
treatment to all such goods, however con- 
veyed. The Allied governments do not at 
present interfere with postal correspond- 
ence found on neutral vessels on the high 
seas, but they exercise their undoubted 
rights to examine and censor such corre- 
spondence when ships carrying them enter 
their territory. 

In the House of Commons, January 27, 
1916, Mr. King asked the Secretary of State 
for Foreign Affairs whether he could make 
a statement concerning correspondence 
with the Dutch government about the in- 
tercepting of postal matter in transit on 
the sea; and whether any offer to submit 
the question to arbitration had been made. 
In answer to Mr. King's question, Lord 
Robert Cecil stated that the correspondence 
with the Scandinavian government would 
shortly be laid before Parliament. On 
February 21, 1916, Lord Robert Cecil stat- 
ed that the publication of the correspond- 
ence with the Dutch government on the 
question of the interception of postal mat- 
ter and other correspondence on the same 
subject was under consideration; but as 
the moment for publishing correspondence 
which was still in progress depended partly 
on arrangements with the other govern- 
ments concerned, he could say nothing 
definite regarding the suggestion that the 
question should be submitted to arbitration. 
Consultations with the Allies were pro- 
ceeding on the whole subject and he pre- 
ferred to make no statement at that time. 

On July 19, 1916, it was stated in Parlia- 
ment that matter published in certain papers 
like th<? Times, the Daily Mail, the Morning 
Post, the Labour Leader and the Tribunal 
had been used by the enemy for propa- 
gandist purposes; that extracts from the 
Daily Mail were being translated into Euro- 
pean and Asiatic languages, and that they 
were doing great damage to the cause of 
Great Britain. Attention, however, was 
called to the fact that none of these papers 
had ever said a word except for the prose- 
cution of the war with the utmost vigor. 

The question of the opening of letters 
addressed to members was discussed in 



4 



Parliament, December 18, 1916. Mr. Mac- 
pherson, the Liberal member for Ross and 
Cromarty, replying to a question put by 
Mr. Touche, said that all mails coming from 
France were liable to be submitted to the 
military censor. No discrimination is made 
between different members of the House. 
"It is a mistake to suppose," said Mr. Mac- 
pherson, '"that the opening of a letter by 
the Censor constitutes any reflection either 
on the writer or the recipient. The object 
of the Censorship is to prevent the enemy 
from making use of indiscretions, to which 
experience shows the best intentioned per- 
sons are liable." 

Just before the last Christmas holidays 
the War Office issued a reminder to the 
public that pictorial illustrations and photo- 
graphs of all kinds, whether on post-cards, 
Christmas, New Year or birthday cards ad- 
dressed to neutral or enemy countries, or en- 
closed in letters so addressed, and whether 
the illustration itself did or did not 
represent an object of interest to the enemy, 
would in the future be stopped by the mili- 
tary censor, except : ( 1 ) Family photo- 
graphs addressed to British subjects in- 
terned in neutral and enemy countries ; 
(2) illustrations in publications posted by 
firms holding a permit; and (3) illustra- 
tions and photographs enclosed in letters or 
other postal packets by firms who have 
occasion in the ordinary course of their 
trade to despatch such articles to their 
agents or customers in neutral countries. 

THE CHECKING OF ENEMY COMMERCE 

One of the principal functions of the 
Censorship is to act as a deterrent to all 
the undertakings of the enemy. That it 
has succeeded in its purpose is evidenced by 
the following extracts from intercepted let- 
ters published in the Times, December 12, 
1916: 

As you see the English are making so many 
disagreeables and seizing the post that our 
business is quite ruined. People do not dare 
to send money any mo-e because they do not 
receive receipts from home. 

As I see from your telegram sent a few days 
ago our lists have not arrived for three 
weeks now. ... I think that if you sent 
the receipts in fifteen private envelopes I 
should perhaps receive them. 

It is incredible how you have helped the 



English Censor to establish the names of our 
agents and also the fact that G. and G. looked 
after our letters . . . you appear to have 
received no post from us since the begin- 
ning of March. Worse still is the fact that 
because of the Censorship you have not got 
our invoices or bills of lading. From this 
miserable condition in which the English sea- 
robbery has placed us there is no way out. 

In conjunction with this we should like 
to say that according to our experience it 
seems now to be utterly impossible to ship 
any goods to foreign countries. Since the 
middle of April we received one single letter 
from one of our friends in the States in which 
he advises us that he instructed a banker 
in Berlin to remit us a certain amount. This 
remittance, however, we do not receive up to 
the present. 

Whatever the English want they get, for 
the whole postal communication with Ger- 
many is completely upset, and we never know 
whether one can draw money or send money 
to the other side. It is very unpleasant for 
me also that I send 25,000 marks to Z., and 
if this remittance has not arrived then all 
the interest will be lost and many months 
will go by before I get over all the difficul- 
ties. . . At this moment I have a con- 
signment lying at L., but I have received no 
invoices and no bills of lading. Everything 
has again been stolen. These are the diffi- 
culties we have to fight against. I hope it 
will not be long before peace is signed. 

In consequence of the condition of the pos- 
tal service with your side, business is on a 
dead standstill. 

From the above we can see how German 
commercial enterprise in foreign countries 
has been checked by cutting off both 
correspondence and remittances. Altho 
approximately half a million business let- 
ters passing between America and Europe 
were examined in the month of January, 
19 1 7, less than ten were found to belong 
to enemy firms. The attempt to use wire- 
less telegraphy in place of the mails has 
met with obstacles. In addition to the high 
cost of sending messages by wireless there 
are other limitations to this kind of service 
as indicated in the following intercepted 
letters from enemy firms : 

Your claim (says one writer) in regard to 
the transmission of your subscription may be 
attributed to the fact that you are ignorant 
of the circumstances that the cable connec- 
tion with the Monarchy has been completely 
interrupted, and that therefore apart from 
wireless telegraphy, the only way to trans- 
fer orders was by letters. As regards com- 
munications by means of wireless telegraphy, 



we would, respectfully inform you that it is 
up to the present very unsatisfactory as a 
result of atmospheric disturbances. Long 
delays are unavoidable, and unfortunately 
messages are often distorted. Whenever pos- 
sible we are transferring our orders by let- 
ter. 

We have made (writes another) a number 
of attempts to get in touch with our bankers 
in Germany by wireless, but up to the pres- 
ent without success. 

As soon as I found (says a third) that all 
my letters, so to speak, fell in the water, and 
did not reach their destination, I gave up 
writing any more. Similarly I did not receive 
a single letter from your side. Communica- 
tion by wireless was also doubtful in the 
highest degree, and one often had no idea 
as to whether the message was destroyed 
by the Censor or whether it ever reached 
its destination or not. Taking it all round 
the present conditions are nothing less than 
infernal for a merchant who has been ac- 
customed to a gradual and steady develop- 
ment of his business relations, and we can 
only hope that everything will some day turn 
out for the best. 

IMPORTANCE OF THE CENSORSHIP 

Possibly no phase of activity which 
sprang into being as a result of the war 
has been more misunderstood and at the 
same time more essential to the public good 
than the British War Office Censorship. 
From the first its workers have been im- 
mensely impressed with the responsibility 
of handling the correspondence of half the 
world. Respect for the rights of these cor- 
respondents has always been the first con- 
sideration and it is not too much to say 
that the majority of the readers employed 
by the Censorship bring to their task a 
purely academic attitude. It is a type of 
work especially uncongenial to the English 
character — foreign to its habits and tradi- 
tions, tho an inevitable necessity in time 
of war. Its exhausting nature is almost 
beyond description. Some readers pass 
upon as many as 400 letters a day. The 
examination of books and other publica- 
tions is of necessity a slower process. 

Starting in London as a group of 30 
workers, chiefly volunteers, the Censorship 
began its delicate and difficult task (in 
September, 1914) in a small basement room 
of the postoffice building. To-day the Lon- 
don branch alone occupies six floors of a 
large building — Strand House, in Carey 
street. Of its 3000 employees about 1700 



are women, the remainder being men over 
military age, neutrals and wounded officers. 
Many of these employes are skilled lin- 
guists. In the Department of Uncommon 
Languages 157 languages are dealt with, 
including Gaelic, Welsh, Erse and five or 
six types of Yiddish. It is a matter of sur- 
prise and interest to know that so many 
persons are in the habit of corresponding 
by such unusual means. 

The aim of the Censor is not, as many 
persons seem to believe, to see how many 
letters and publications may properly be 
detained, but to endeavor — as rapidly as 
possible — to send on everything that is 
found to contain no information of value 
to the enemy and nothing that could injure ! 
the cause of the Allies. 

In the Philadelphia Saturday Evening 
Post of April 28 and May 5, 1917, Major 
Eric Fisher Wood published two excellent 
articles on the British Censorship. To this 
painstaking study we may refer anyone 
who wishes information on the organization 
of the Censorship as a whole. The purpose 
of the present paper is to deal more particu- 
larly with the Censorship as it affects the 
supply of publications of enemy origin to 
American librarians and scholars. 

Detection of German propaganda and 
contraband of war in the mails is by no 
means the principal function of the Censor- 
ship. The London Times, December 12, 
1916, observes that the Censorship may not 
unfairly be called the eyes of the blockade. 
Its principal work, it continues, lies in de- 
tecting and frustrating the innumerable and 
everchanging subterfuges contrived by the 
enemy with the connivance of neutral inter- 
mediaries for evading the blockade and 
carrying the sinews of^,war into Central 
Europe in the form "either of goods or 
credit. The contrivance of such schemes 
by cable or by wireless is obviously im- 
possible, and the examination of the mails 
has in countless cases proved an insuper- 
able obstacle to their success. 

GERMAN PROPAGANDIST LITERATURE 

For what follows here I am indebted to 
Mr. Harry Melvill, librarian of the Censor- 
ship, who was most generous in granting 
interviews and in placing at my disposal 
many of his own interesting memoranda. 



Mr. Melvill has gathered, arranged and 
carefully studied some 2000 specimens of 
various kinds of German propagandist liter- 
ature. In his unique library are single 
copies of every book, pamphlet and periodi- 
cal of enemy origin detained by the censor 
since September 1, 1914. This material 
Mr. Melvill has divided into groups : philo- 
sophical, religious, educational and pure 
propaganda. But he has done much more 
than this in divining the motive behind the 
publication itself. 

Before the war German propagandist 
literature for both commercial and religious 
purposes was sent out on a scale that no 
other country had ever attempted. Many 
private individuals and establishments of 
various sorts scattered all over the world 
had been receiving gratis — for months, 
sometimes even for years — German liter- 
ature in one form or another. Therefore, 
upon the outbreak of the war, it was not 
an occasion for special surprise to them to 
receive the new propagandist literature. 
And just as for purposes of distribution of 
ordinary propaganda the Germans used the 
channels of commerce ready to hand which 
had been so long and so freely at the service 
of their commercial propaganda, so there is 
no doubt in Mr. Melvill's mind that re- 
ligious congregations of various phases of 
thought had kept in the closest touch with 
those of the same persuasion in neutral 
countries with a view to the distribution 
of the so-called religious propaganda. 

In a memorandum prepared several 
months ago, Mr. Melvill divided the objects 
of the German propaganda into the fol- 
lowing five classes : 

(1) To draw attention to the perfection of 

German methods of organization. 

(2) To give an exaggerated impression of the 

successes achieved by Germany in the 
war. 

(3) To neutralize as far as possible the bad 

effects produced by earlier excesses. 

(4) By more subtle touches to indicate the 

growth of dissension among the Allies 
and modifications in the attitude of 
neutrals towards the ultimate result of 
the war. 

(5) To misrepresent, as far as possible, 

thru the distortion of past expressions 
of opinion by writers of the Allied Na- 
tions, and by the employment of rene- 
gades, to deal with such topics as the 
treatment of subject races by the Allies. 



The first two objects were mainly served 
by the German war literature in general 
and the remaining three by propagandist 
literature. 

THE PROPAGANDIST PRESS 

The earliest steps in regard to propa- 
ganda proper were taken by the Press. The 
Ueberseedienst [Transozean] from the first 
utilized its large pecuniary resources, not 
only to obtain publication of its garbled 
war telegrams, Germanophile articles and 
frequently falsified photographs in a large 
number of neutral papers, but also to ac- 
quire entire control of several already ex- 
isting and to launch new ones of their own. 
Notable among the latter are the Germania 
at Buenos Aires, and papers of the same 
name at Bogota, Guayaquil and San Paulo; 
the Heraldo Aleman at San Salvador and 
the Eco Aleman at Guatemala. In China, in 
association with the Ostasiatischer Lloyd, 
they founded The War and a Chinese 
edition of the Deutsche Zeitung fur China 
at Shanghai and the Umschau and Rund- 
schau at Bangkok. The Kontinentale 
Korrespondenz (in German, English, Span- 
ish and Portuguese) designed to furnish 
the neutral press with ready made copy, was 
also their creation. Moreover, they them- 
selves published various polyglot periodicals 
and leaflets which found a host of imi- 
tators, and without doubt many of these 
made their way to place which books and 
pamphlets could not reach. 

Furthermore, the Pressc-Abteilung zur 
Bceinflussnng dcr Ncutralen served a simi- 
lar purpose and was more or less responsi- 
ble for the publication of the War Chron- 
icle in German, English, French, Spanish 
and Dutch, and for De Toekomst published 
in Holland in Dutch. This organization 
was solely responsible for the creation of 
a propagandist comic paper printed in Span- 
ish and entitled La Guasa inter nacional. 
The Hamburger Fremdenblatt, with its 
"Welt im Bild" issued in twelve languages, 
and the Hamburger Nachrichten, with 
Spanish and Portuguese editions, were 
some of the first recruits, while the enrol- 
ment of the most disreputable of the latter 
belongs also to the initial stages of the cam- 
paign. There were also the British rene^; 
gades and cosmopolitan hacks constituting 
the staff of the Continental Times, a sheet 



purporting to be established for "Ameri- 
cans in Europe." The Gazette des Ar- 
dennes, tho belonging to a later period 
may be mentioned here, as the two are 
often classed together. Published in Charle- 
ville, it endeavors, by the insertion of lists 
of French prisoners in Germany, to obtain 
readers in the occupied portion of France, 
while the Russki Vyestnik, published in 
Berlin, was produced for distribution 
among Russian prisoners of war and in 
occupied parts of Poland. 

The mobilization of the whole German 
press, explained Mr. Melvill, was equally 
complete. Every newspaper, which hither- 
to had published general or special news, 
published practically nothing but war news. 
As an instance to which this policy had 
been carried out he cited the fact that the 
Criminal Zeitung continues to appear under 
its old title, but has replaced records of 
crime by the exploits of soldiers; that art 
journals substituted "Kriegsjahr" for the 
year of publication, and that the Miinchener 
Medizinische Wochenschrift has extended 
the hospitality of its columns to a prose 
paraphrase of the Hymn of Hate. While 
it was not suggested that the mass of 
scientific, technical and medical journals 
published in Germany ceased to devote 
themselves to subjects of special interest 
to their readers, Mr. Melvill was convinced 
that they also served a propagandist pur- 
pose by being distributed in isolated num- 
bers to show that "Continuous research 
and industrial development under, and in 
spite of war conditions" is to be taken as 
Germany's somewhat ponderous reply to 
the British slogan: "Business as usual." 

GERMAN USE OF ENEMY LITERATURE 

That the Germans in general, and those 
engaged in the preparation of propaganda 
in particular, have a fund of knowledge of 
the literature of their enemies, is indis- 
putable. There is very little that the Allies 
have said against themselves or each other 
which has not found its way to the shelves 
in the Wilhelmstrasse. Carlyle and Her- 
bert Spencer, files of the Times and Punch 
are all requisitioned. The censorship li- 
brarian suggested that the "England von 
Innen" number of the Silddeutsche Monats- 
hefte might bear as a sub-title, dear to 
Germans : "See what they say of them- 



selves." The corresponding "Frankreich 
von Innen" number represents what the 
Germans say of the French, although it is 
to be noted that the Germans recently have 
represented the French as the most humane 
and cultivated of their enemies. In this 
utilization of Allied material, there is of 
course much that is mutilated and distorted, 
but there is a growing tendency to publish 
without comment wherever possible. A 
good instance of this policy (and at the 
same time a nice literary touch in propa- 
ganda) is afforded by De Engelsche Tier- 
anny, a recent production of the Dutch 
Germanophile organ De Toekomst. Orig- 
inally published at Amsterdam in 1781, it 
is now reprinted in the old type on an 
exact reproduction of the old paper and 
with the old engravings of supposed Eng- 
lish pillage and oppression. The text is 
made up of conversations between a father 
and a son, recalling legendary grievances 
of the Dutch against the English and fore- 
shadowing, almost verbatim, the comments 
on the British attitude toward small na- 
tions which are never out of the mouths 
of their enemies to-day. 

As a pioneer of the propaganda proper 
in its relation to books and pamphlets, Mr. 
Melvill thinks that pride of place may be 
accorded to Houston Stewart Chamberlain, 
though his success as an evangelist has 
been in the inverse ratio to his prestige 
as a British-born apostle of German "Kul- 
tur." 

Touching upon the endeavor to stimulate 
unrest in India, my informant said that the 
Indische Gesellschaft, hand in glove with 
the Hindustan Ghadar of San Francisco 
and the so-called Indian National Party, 
have produced a mass of literature, much 
of which claims to have been printed in 
England by presses which never existed. 
"British Rule in India condemned by the 
British themselves" is a patchwork of ut- 
terances by more or less distinguished 
Britishers, ranging from Lord Clive to 
Keir Hardie. It is prefaced by John Stuart 
Mill's pronouncement: "The Government 
of a people by itself has a meaning and a 
reality, but such a thing as government of 
one people by another does not and can not 
exist." Like the reprint of William Jen- 
nings Bryan's article with an almost similar 



8 



title, it has received the honor of transla- 
tion into almost every known language and 
has found a sequel in "Why India is in 
revolt against British rule." This pamphlet 
purports to come from a mythical Labor 
Press, Edinburgh, but the very fact that 
the word Labor is spelled without a u shows 
it to be the product of an American press. 
Of the mass of other pamphlets in native 
languages, including Chinese, some are il- 
lustrated with photographs of the execu- 
tion of Egyptian natives in connection with 
the Denshawi incident of some years ago. 

INSTRUCTIONAL BOOKS 

The Germans made special endeavors to 
distribute propaganda in instructional books 
because they rightly thought that such were 
allowed to pass. But Mr. Melvill believes 
that they never have realized the thoroness 
with which the censoring is conducted and 
doubtless have no idea that any book is 
ever read from cover to cover. The use 
of every kind of publication in Germany 
for furthering its cause has, however, made 
this extreme caution necessary. Attention 
was called to the September, 1916, number 
of a serious magazine like the Deutsche 
Rundschau containing an article on the 
martyrdom of Roger Casement, bound for 
export in a cover dated September, 1902, 
in the hope that the censor would dismiss 
it as pre-war literature. The record of 
Lieut. Pluschow's double exploit in escap- 
ing from Sing Tau by aeroplane and from 
Donington Hall by a neutral boat was 
bound up in a school-boy's ink-stained copy 
of another Odyssey, that of Homer, in the 
belief that instructional books were sub- 
jected to only the most cursory examina- 
tion. Not content with this, grammars in 
Turkish and Portuguese, detained in the 
mails, have been found to have all their 
examples and exercises of a definitely pro- 
pagandist character. As an instance of the 
former, the Tiirkische Lesestiicke, by Dr. 
Hans Stumm (Leipzig, 1916) contains a 
letter from a Turkish soldier to his mother, 
extolling the German comrade-in-arms and 
vilifying the French and English opposition 
in the Dardanelles. A grammar in the 
Portuguese language imparts a glowing 
glorification of German trade enterprises in 
Brazil. 



But perhaps the best example of German 
inventiveness on record in the library of the 
Censorship is an attempt to smuggle to a 
prisoner of war political information be- 
tween the covers of a pocket edition of a 
humorous publication entitled Stratenfegels 
— one of a series of the Reclam's Universal- 
Bibliothek. An exceedingly innocent look- 
ing little collection of verse and tales in 
low German, the "inventor" of it doubtless 
thought that no mere censor could or would 
take the trouble to read through its 90 
pages in order to discover that although 
page 48 continues quite properly over to 
page 49 and for five lines thereon, the 
sixth line begins a letter to "Dear Brother." 
This letter, containing information about 
the situation in Germany, occupies four 
pages, each one thus cleverly placed at 
intervals throughout the book. All well 
known names are disguised in the supposi- 
tion that the little volume would at most be 
glanced at only hastily and thus the eye 
would not be attracted to them. For exam- 
ple, Bethman-Holweg becomes for pur- 
poses of evasion Manbeth-Wegholl. 

The manifesto of the French Catholic 
bishops gave the first impetus to the ex- 
tensive contributions of so-called religious 
propaganda which have figured so largely 
in the campaign, Deutsche Kultur, Katho- 
lisismus und Welt Krieg leading the way. 
Protestant as well as Catholic weekly and 
monthly letters sprang into existence and 
have since been extensively circulated, 
wrapped up in war literature, or vice versa. 
Jesus und dcr Krieg and Die Bibel als 
Kriegsbuch are the titles of two brochures 
and Mr. Melvill regards it as scarcely an 
exaggeration to say that the Germans have 
pressed every phase of religious belief into 
their service. An exception must be made 
for Christian Science, he adds, which, 
though originating in America, is consid- 
ered by the Germans a purely British pos- 
session. 

THE CENSORSHIP LIBRARY 

The collection of propaganda proper in 
the possession of the War Office Postal 
Censorship is most varied and comprehen- 
sive. As respects German war literature in 
general, as distinct from propaganda 
proper, it was impressed upon the writer 



that the former has been distributed by the 
same recipients as the latter. Ample con- 
firmation is afforded by intercepted letters 
of the fact that such literature is looked 
upon as propaganda by the Germans them- 
selves. All German war publications must 
therefore be regarded by the Censorship 
as propagandist. The amount of it sent 
through the mails clearly proves that it is 
designed to help the German cause. The 
ever-increasing mass of war literature has 
been promoted by means of translation to 
take its place in the propagandist ranks. 
Die Kriegsgefangenen in Deutschland, one 
of the Montanus Biicher series — uniform 
with similar publications dealing with Ger- 
man history, naval and military efficiency, 
and profusely illustrated — was naturally of 
great interest to the Germans who were en- 
tertaining within their gates so many 
strangers of various types and nationali- 
ties. It has been translated into Spanish 
and all the languages of the Allies, and has 
been one of the publications most widely 
distributed for propaganda purposes. The 
innumerable books dealing with every 
phase of the campaign, East and West, un- 
doubtedly play their part, if only by their 
titles in a publisher's catalog, as showing 
how many places German troops have vis- 



ited, tho their stay in some cases has not 
been very prolonged. The wholesale ideal- 
ization of their heroes, undertaken in the 
first flush of their success, has been indus- 
triously continued. Countless details about 
the lives of Hindenburg and Mackensen, 
Weddigen and Immelmann, personal nar- 
ratives of Captain Koenig, and commanders 
of other ships and submarines, the fre- 
quency with which the Goeben and the 
Breslau, the Emden and the Dresden figure 
on the backs of books, however trivial, all 
contribute to recall their exploits. 

It is too early for the Censorship to esti- 
mate how completely the propagandist cam- 
paign has failed to justify the time, money 
and trouble lavished upon its prosecution. 
Even without Great Britain's interference 
with the mails, it would appear probable 
that no amount of variety could have pre- 
vented its very volume and insistence from 
defeating its own ends. As Mr. Melvill 
points out, its material has revealed a mine 
of knowledge, its methods are characterized 
by much German efficiency, and certain of 
its manipulations have developed much quite 
un-German suppleness, but as regards the 
Wilhelmstrasse's main objectives, it has 
missed the mark. 




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